


Secret Santa Exposes a Secret

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, F/M, Gen, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 15:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12986766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)Day 11 of the 25 Days of BAU Christmas. <3





	Secret Santa Exposes a Secret

“Babygirl, do we really have to do Secret Santa?” 

Garcia cut her eyes at her statuesque God of a best friend. “Yes. We do. Don’t be such a grinch.”

Morgan huffed, but smiled. None of them really had the money to give presents to everyone, and as much as he didn’t want to do Secret Santa, he’d do anything for his Babygirl. “Okay, so we pick names now? I’m assuming you already have all our names in a bag.”

“That I do, my sexy grinch.”

With her festive Christmas dress and bright, red-lipped smile, Penelope swirled around the table as Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, Emily, JJ, Reid and Y/N reached into the bag and pulled out a name. “We have a week and a half. Go forth, my pretties.”

A soft smile had crossed Morgan’s face when he pulled Emily’s name from Garcia’s colorful bag of Christmas cheer. Despite having only been with the team for a little over a year, Emily belonged here; he knew it - they all did. There was a comfort in their relationship that wasn’t there with anyone else - even Penelope. Penelope was his Babygirl, through and through; he’d do anything for her, but the two of them couldn’t just sit in silence and still have a conversation. He could do that with Emily. On nights when cases were getting to them, he and Emily could go out for a drink, say nothing, and somehow feel better.

Speaking of drinks. If he’d learned one thing about Emily over the past year, it was that she loved her wine. She had a glass ever night before bed. That’s why when he found out that a place called Vinebox would deliver personalized wine flights to your door for three months for $80, he knew he had to get it. 

It may not have been the most “thoughtful” of gifts, but at the end of the day, having that glass of wine to relax was important to her, which was why it was the perfect gift.

At first Emily couldn’t figure out what to get Hotch. He had everything he wanted for the most part. That’s when it dawned on her. What he didn’t always have was time with his son, and while she couldn’t give him time off or take away his troubles, she did have the ability to grab him season tickets to the local baseball team. They weren’t all that expensive and he could take Jack to them every time. She’d make sure of it. Even if she had to take his paperwork and finish it for him so he could go. 

She of all people knew that there are some moments you couldn’t get back. Jack was his world. Between her and the rest of the team, they’d definitely make sure he took some time off to relax and treasure the little things.

Hotch was pretty sure he had the hardest match of anyone. JJ was a young woman and young mother who didn’t really want for anything. She had her son. She had the man she loved. And even a job she enjoyed. How she juggled it all was astounding to him. 

After a lot of pondering, he realized that things weren’t everything, experiences sometimes counted even more. With all the stress of being a new mother, a loving girlfriend and a devoted agent surely weighed on her, right? Just in case he was going crazy, he called Haley to ask if his idea was a good one. 

“Absolutely!” She screamed into the phone, nearly blowing out her soon-to-be ex’s eardrums. Despite their separation, they still loved each other. “As someone who’s been a new mom, an hour massage to herself will be more rejuvenating than you can possibly imagine.” She’d had one herself shortly after Jack was born and it was like her batteries had been recharged. 

“Perfect. Thanks, Haley.”

“Anytime, Aaron.”

“Tell Jack I’ll see him soon and I love him.”

“I tell him every night.”

With a gift card in hand, he felt a weight lift off him. He’d found the perfect gift for JJ and despite his sadness at this being his first Christmas without Haley, they were getting along. Things were going to be okay.

What the fuck were you supposed to get a best-selling author and millionaire who could literally buy anything he wanted? JJ loved Rossi, but getting him for Secret Santa. Dammit, that was hard. Immediately, she thought of bourbon, but she wasn’t sure exactly what kind to get, so during the week when they met at his house for dinner, she searched around his collection of alcohol to discern some of his taste and figure out what he did and didn’t have.

God, he had an extensive bourbon collection. From what she could gather from his store, he liked his bourbon spicy and sweet, but not too sweet. 

In her search for the perfect bourbon, JJ came across way too many sweet bourbons, until finally she stumbled upon something that looked so disgusting to her, it just had to be his perfect type of bourbon - Michter’s 1010 Year Bourbon. It looked gross - it was perfect!

Hopefully, he didn’t have a bottle of it already hidden around her somewhere.

If there were two people more opposite in the world, Rossi wasn’t sure he’d be able to find them. Penelope was his complete opposite, but that’s why he loved her so much. He liked bourbon. She liked cosmos. He liked fine art. She liked random knick knacks sitting all over her desk. He liked cigars. She preferred cupcakes with colorful icing on them.

What was he supposed to get for the quirkiest, most sunshine happy human being he’d ever met in his life?

Cats.

She loved cats.

After a bad day in her lair, she drowned herself in cat videos.

Through online shopping and super fast shipping options, he was able to put together a basket of all things cat. A cat face mini purse. A cat cameo necklace. A cat mug for her desk. A ring with cat ears on it. A tank top with cat whiskers. All the cats. Cats, cats, cats, cats, cats. It was perfect. On a bad day, she’d pull out all of her cat-related things to make her smile.

When Penelope picked Y/N’s name out of her bag of tricks, she’d gotten an enormous smile on her face. It was such an awesome thing to shop for a geek, and that’s what Y/N was - her lovable nerd girl. 

Y/N loved cartoons, movies, television, broadway musicals, basically anything that could keep her distracted from the horrors they saw every single day. 

But Penelope had a big problem - a big, BIG problem. She could’t just buy one thing. It was actually impossible for her. When she went shopping for one person, she either bought that person all the things, or ended up buying something for more than person at a time. It was a problem. Or was it?

First, she picked out a shower curtain with the periodic table on it, which would be great for her and Reid when they were in the shower together, not that they’d admit that. Apparently, they were still trying to keep things a secret even though the entire team could see that they were head over heels in love with each other. 

In addition to the curtain, she bought a bunch of thigh-high socks with words on them, including geek, nerd, bacon and bookworm, a Star Wars cuckoo clock, and a chessboard that looked like the first one from the Harry Potter movie. She and Spencer would have fun with that too. Maybe one of these days they’d finally admit they were getting it on. That would be a great Christmas present.

She’d already gotten Spencer something for Christmas. They were dating. Of course, she’d gotten him something, but now she needed to get him something else, and something else that didn’t seem too special because she didn’t want to give away to the rest of the team that she and Spence were dating - something super nerdy that he would never buy for himself was definitely the way to go. 

For his gift from her personally, she’d gotten him a bunch of different things that he could use to make him feel better after a long day. He liked baths, especially now that she was in there with him, so she got him some bath bombs. She’d also bought some kinetic sand for destressing, a leather bracelet with her name inscribed on the inside, star stickers for the ceiling above their bed, wookie seatbelt covers for his car, and even noise-cancelling headphones that were made to look like Darth Vader for when he needed to tell everyone in the office that he was overwhelmed and they needed to leave him alone. 

What else was she supposed to get him?

That BB-8 droid you could control with the phone!

He refused to buy it for himself because it was a lot of money, but it was something he wanted and it was inconspicuous enough as to not give them away. It was perfect.

Spencer always felt an enormous amount of pressure to get someone the perfect gift, but for Morgan he’d do it. It took him almost a week to think of something perfect, but the moment he laid his eyes on it, he knew it was perfect. It was a sawhorse and work table all in one for when he worked on his houses. It was foldable and thin for easy storage and everything. 

He was so glad he’d found something he thought Morgan would genuinely like and use. Now the pressure was off. The only thing weighing on his shoulders now was making sure no one found out about him and Y/N yet.

“The day has come!” Penelope said happily. “It is time for everyone to reveal themselves to their giftees! Me first! Y/N, here you go, this was so much fun, Merry Christmas, I love you!”

Y/N leaned over and gave Penelope a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, My love.” Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head when she opened her gifts. “An HP chessboard, cool thigh-high socks, Star Wars, a periodic table shower curtain! Garcia you went overboard.”

“Do you love it all?’

“Yes, of course.”

“Then I don’t care!” She giggled. “Your turn.”

Pulling the box out, she handed it over to Spencer, trying her best to hide her blushing face. “Hope you like,” she tried to say as informally as possible. 

“Oh my god, it’s the BB-8 droid,” he smiled. Y/N wondered if anyone could tell that they were dating, because Spencer seemed to be doing a horrible job of hiding it right now. “Thanks, Y/N. You really shouldn’t have, but I do love it.” 

He barely made eye contact with anyone for the rest of the night save for giving Morgan his own gift. “Kid, how did you find this? It’s perfect!” Morgan stood up from the round table and unfolded the table right there. “This is going to be so much easier than lugging around two separate pieces to every house I work on. Did you calculate the perfect gift mathematically or something?” He asked, bringing his kid brother in for a hug. 

“Yea, something like that,” Spencer laughed, as he tried to peel his eyes off his new droid. 

Folding the table back up, he propped it against the wall and pulled out his gift for Emily. The subscription was all wrapped up in a card, but she couldn’t contain herself from spewing expletives at the thought of getting new wines to try for the next three months. 

Hotch had nearly shed a tear at Emily’s gift of season tickets for him and Jack. “I promise, that no matter what myself and the rest of the team,” she said (turning back to give the rest of the team a death glare), “We will make sure you get to go to each of those games with him.”

“Thank you so much, Emily.”

He turned away to wipe the tear from his eye in secret before grabbing the card to give to JJ. 

“Wooohoooo! A massage…an hour to myself…yessssssss.” She sighed happily, sliding back in her chair. “This is amazing, Hotch. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You’ve more than earned it.”

With a smile, she reached behind her chair to grab her gift to Rossi. “Okay, when I was at your place last week, I did some snooping. I really hope you don’t have this yet, but you are impossible to buy for because you can already buy everything you want.”

His eyes sparkled against the reflection of the aged bourbon. “Oh, Michter’s. I’ve never had this one before. You do know me, JJ. It’s perfect. I think I’m gonna drink some now. Anyone else want?”

Rossi snickered and shook his head as everyone gagged at the smell of aged bourbon. Only Morgan and Hotch would drink it with him on occasion. “And last but certainly not least, my gift for the one and only organizer of this Secret Santa, Penelope Garcia.” Leaning over, he gave her a hug and watched as her mouth dropped open.

“Everything has cats on it,” she said. “You sly dog, you. Tank top, a mug, a rang, a necklace, a purse. I can surround myself with kittens all day every day. Thank you so much!”

As everyone broke into separate conversations, smiles thankfully filling the room where so much horror had been seen. Soon, they all found themselves yawning and getting ready to leave. “So, I hope you two make good use out of that,” Penelope said sneakily, pointing towards the curtain as she looked between Y/N and Reid. 

Without thinking, Y/N nodded and checked her hip against Spencer’s. “Ha! I knew it! You’re dating!”

The two glanced at each other. They were too tired to fight it. “Yea,” Spencer said. “I guess we are,” Y/N finished.

Penelope gloated as they walked toward the elevator. “Best Christmas ever!”


End file.
